


Episode 1 - A Few Good Mistakes

by goaskjane



Series: Doctor Who Series 13 [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 13th regeneration, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:23:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goaskjane/pseuds/goaskjane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor in his 13th regeneration meets his new companion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Episode 1 - A Few Good Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine Benedict Cumberbatch as the Doctor and Emma Watson as Molly.

Molly turned the page of Steven Hawking’s _A Brief history of Time_ and absently stamped another book in her stack of overdues. The book in her hand was well-worn and creased and Molly had made several notes in the margins – it was always a fascinating read.

“Pardon me,” Molly looked up to see a tall ginger boy in a sweater vest and a sport coat smile briefly, though disinterestedly, at her. “Where would one find the restroom?”

“Downstairs, on the left,” Molly gestured vaguely toward the stairwell and turned back to her book, flipping to the section on the nature of black holes.

“Many thanks.” The boy left and Molly continued her monotonous stamping, falling into an easy rhythm.

An earth-rattling BOOM threw off Molly’s timing and several of her overdues slid across the circulation counter. She stood and stared out the door of the London Library and saw dust rising from the street in front of St. James’s Square.

BOOM! This time even louder, and books came flying off the shelves around her, nearly knocking Molly from her feet. Molly’s heart skipped when she realized that the quake had come from beneath her – beneath the library. She grabbed her satchel, stuffed Steven Hawking swiftly inside, and ran around the circulation desk. She headed for the stairwell, shouting at patrons to evacuate as she went, and started down.

Molly threw open the door to the lower level; there was not much down there except for the restrooms, a few meeting rooms, and the media hub, where the main computer was kept. The hall was empty, as per usual, but it was somehow eerie in the wake of the mysterious booming.

Another BOOM and a rattle sent Molly reeling toward the wall, but two hands caught her by the arms and prevented her from smashing face-first into the cement. She turned to see the tall ginger from before looming over her. “Sir,” she said in her most official voice, “you need to head upstairs and evacuate the building; we’re having some sort of…”

“I know exactly what you’re having,” he cut her off, “and trust me, I’m definitely heading the right way.” With that, he turned away from Molly and started down the long hallway.

“Hey!” Molly called after him. “Wait just a moment!” She rushed to meet him at the door to the main computer. He pulled from his pocket a little silver device that was lit green at one end. The mysterious man pointed the green end at the lock on the door and clicked. An odd buzzing and fizzling emitted from the device, and frustrated, the man slapped it against the palm of his hand.

“Gah!” he made an angry sound, “there must be some sort of interference.” He looked all around as though expecting to see the source of the interruption, but there was nothing but yet another BOOM.

“What are you trying to do?” Molly demanded. “That’s the main computer…”

“I know what it is!” He snapped. Molly raised an eyebrow.

“Well, you’re rude,” she said bluntly. He instantly looked disappointed.

“Am I?” he asked with a sigh. “I always turn out rude – it’s so frustrating.” He shook the little device and tried the door once again, but still to no avail. “And now this isn’t working and I can’t get to the main computer!” He grabbed the doorknob and shook it angrily, but still it did not open.

“Maybe you could use a key?” Molly suggested smartly.

“Where am I to get one of those?” Molly reached into her bag and produced a set of keys. His face lit up.

“Marvelous! It’s like Christmas come early! No – not quite like Christmas – I always have bad luck on Christmas. It’s like Guy Fawkes day – always a good day!” Molly shook her head, slightly exhausted by his rambling, and selected the proper key. She hastily opened the door and the man threw it open without waiting for her to remove the keys from the lock. “Now – if I were an intergalactic terrorist where would I start?”

“Wait – _intergalactic_?” Molly interjected. “As in _aliens_?”

“Yeah. Well, alien to you. Well, alien to me as well, I suppose – they’re not from my planet.” He started shifting the computer’s console and sniffed at a cord.

“What do you mean ‘your planet’?” Molly exclaimed.

“No time for that now!” The man insisted. “Intergalactic terrorists!” Molly took a steadying breath.

“Right,” she sighed. “Well what are they after?”

“Not sure yet,” he said, pulling on some loose cords and pressing buttons like a madman. “I’m sure they want to take over your planet. Someone’s always trying to take over your planet….”

“Tell me about it,” Molly agreed, stooping down to watch him tap the computer tower with his apparently-malfunctioning laser pointer. At her words, he paused to look up at her curiously. “What? The government’s always trying to cover things up. Like Christmas 2010…”

“Okay, it’s great that you’re not going to be slowed down by the idea of an alien threat, but we can geek out over conspiracy theories later,” he said, putting a hand out to halt her speech. Then his eyes widened with some new realization and he said, “Wow, I _am_ rude.” He shook his head and went back to examining the computer.

“Why would these aliens be trying to break into a public library?” Molly asked, finally turning on the computer with a simple button-push, the man’s apparent chagrin.

“Why else?” He looked at her expectantly.

“To study?” she replied with sarcasm.

“Exactly!” said the man excitedly. “To learn the Earth’s entire history of war. How hard is it to defeat humans? How do they fight? How do they lose?” Molly beat the man to the keyboard, swiftly logging in to the library’s digital database, searching for any breeches in security.

“So – they assimilate all human tactics of warfare by hacking a library database?”

“Precisely. Knowledge is power,” he replied coyly.

“Wow….” Molly could hardly believe what was happening, but another BOOM brought her mind back to the urgency of the situation. “So what do we do?”

“There’s no ‘we’ about it,” the man said incredulously. “ _I’m_ going to head them off as soon as I figure out what section they’re in.”

“Excuse me,” Molly put forth with a hand on her hip, “I think you mean as soon as _I_ find out what section they’re in. You wouldn’t even have made it through the big bad door without my help! I’ll be accompanying you through the library. It’s my job, it’s fun, and frankly, I don’t quite trust you to be alone in my library. You strike me as the kind of person who causes destruction.”

“You’re a very good judge of character,” the man said, turning his attention to the computer monitor as Molly continued to search the system.

“So what exactly are we up against?” she asked, typing furiously.

“There are only two species in this galaxy who have ever behaved similarly. Luckily, the more dangerous of the two is extinct. Hopefully, we’re just looking at an only mildly threatening people who simply wish to expand their real estate holdings. But, I also suppose there’s a chance that it won’t be very easy to convince them to leave peacefully.”

“Do they have a name?”

“If I’m right – and I usually am – I’m thinking they’re the Trachiomatoriss. Not very strong, but extremely intelligent. They absorb information at an incredible rate.”

“But they could gain access to so much more than we have in the library! Not just war history – Roman phalanx, guerilla warfare – but government secrets! Nuclear weapon plans…”

“No, no, no,” the man condescended. “They can only get at what’s in _this_ computer.” He tapped the CPU confidently.

“No – you don’t get it,” Molly insisted. “This computer has internet access – we keep our catalogue on the web.”

The man’s brow furrowed and Molly could imagine gears turning furiously in his mind. “I’ve got to get to them – this is _not_ good.” Almost as though to accentuate his point, another forceful BOOM sounded, actually causing tiny debris to fall upon them from the ceiling. He leapt to his feet and said, “I’m going to try and find a way inside.”

“Inside what?”

“I imagine they’re inside the walls – that’s what’s causing the BOOMs.” He said all of this as though it should have been obvious to Molly. Growing angry, Molly took one last glace at the screen before unplugging the computer entirely. “What are you doing?” the man shouted. “Now we won’t know where they are!”

“I do,” Molly said coolly, “and I’m not going to let you go running amok in my library. _You_ follow _me_ now.” The man looked positively affronted, but did not object.

Reveling in the man’s expression, Molly leapt to her feet and started toward the stairwell. “So where are they headed?”

“If I tell you, will you promise not to run off on your own and lock me in the cellar?”

“Well I do now.”

“They’re in 940.3 – World War I. The beginning of modern warfare.” Molly made her way past the first floor landing and threw open the door to the second floor. “I’ve separated them from the internet, so hopefully they’ll find themselves stalemated for a little while in world history. Maybe we can get to them before they get to 940.53.”

“940.53?”

“World War II – all hell breaks loose.” Molly led the way through the now-deserted library, winding her way expertly through the shelves. She slid to a stop in World History and the man followed suit. The aisle was empty, but there was an ominous rumble coming from behind the wall, reverberating through the floor even when there was no loud BOOMing.

The man went to the shelves and began pulling books wildly from them and tossing them on the floor. “Hey! What are you doing? I’m going to have to pick that up, you know!”

“Not if there’s no library, you won’t!” Finally, it seemed that he had cleared a sufficient amount of shelf-space and he stuck his head and shoulders into the empty space, pressing his ear against the wall behind. He started tapping at the wall, moving along it, listening to the insides very intently. “Here,” he said at long last, straightening his jacket. “They’re right here. Now stand back.” He took the laser pointer from his pocket again and said, “I think I can pick up on their energy source and throw it back at them.” He looked around at Molly, who hadn’t moved – that thing had been less than useless in the cellar. “Take cover,” he said incredulously. Molly sighed and ducked down behind an armchair. The man rolled his eyes at her, but turned back to the wall. He pressed a few buttons on the laser pointer before pointing it impressively at the wall.

Molly was not at all prepared for the explosion that followed. Shelving, books, wood paneling, dust and dirt all went flying past her insufficient shelter of an armchair. She threw herself to the floor and waited until everything seemed to settle. When she stood again, the man seemed unaffected by the explosion. In fact, he looked rather pleased with it.

“I knew there was nothing wrong with you,” he said affectionately to the laser pointer. “Now,” he said much more impressively, “for the Trachiomatoriss.” Molly approached the man cautiously as he reached into the gaping hole he had just made in the wall and pulled out what appeared to be a metal spider about the size of a grapefruit.

“Is that one of them?” Molly asked. The spider twitched its many legs and seemed to be trying to get at the man’s wrist. He pressed the laser pointer to its belly and buzzed it; its legs twitched and finally froze.

“No, this is just their foot soldier,” he replied. “A probe, collecting information. They’re much larger.”

“How much larger?”

He didn’t have a chance to answer before the roof was blasted off of the library. What Molly could only describe as a flying saucer was hovering over the gaping hole in the library roof. Its circumference was so wide that Molly couldn’t even see sky from around it.

“ _That_ much larger.”

A wide beam of light came down from the center of the vessel and scanned over the entire upper floor of the library before landing on Molly and the man. It paused, blinked from blue to red, and a loud buzzing suddenly filled the air, loud enough to drown out the chaotic screams and shouts from the street as people began to realize what was happening. The light shifted away from them and a hazy image appeared there. Molly stared in absolute disbelief at the holographic image of what appeared to be a furry hammerhead shark.

“Which of you is the keeper?” No mouth that Molly could see had moved, but a voice had sounded, nonetheless. It was a deep voice, and it seemed to reverberate _inside_ her head rather than around it. The man seemed completely unfazed by the sight of such a bizarre creature or having another voice inside his head. He stepped forward completely calmly, straightened his jacket, and said,

“I am. I’m…”

“You speak for this planet?” the voice interrupted. The man opened his mouth to reply, but Molly cut him off.

“No, he doesn’t,” she said with more strength than she actually felt. “I do. And he’s no keeper, either. I am.”

“What are you doing?” the man hissed at Molly.

“You said yourself that you’re not from this planet,” she hissed back. “What right do you have to speak for the human race?”

“I’ve only been protecting you for _centuries_!”

“Oh, don’t be so high-and-mighty.” Molly turned back to the space-ambassador and said, “I’m the librarian. And a human. May I ask why you have destroyed my library?” She heard the man sigh incredulously.

“We seek knowledge, Librarian,” the voice answered as though that much were obvious.

“To what end?” Molly continued.

“So that we may procure this planet. It is yet unclaimed.”

“What exactly do you plan on doing with this planet?”

“We plan to harvest its natural resources. The native species has proven strangely incompetent at this task. Do you not agree, Librarian?”

“I do,” Molly said with the same tone she used when reasoning with a child, “but that is only because our technology is no doubt far behind your own.”

“It certainly is. The Trachiomatoriss are a highly efficient species.”

“If you only wish to harvest resources,” Molly continued, “why would you be researching methods of war?”

“Previous research indicated that the human race is not very compliant.” The Trachiomatoriss tilted its head to one side as though stating the obvious. The man scoffed in indignant agreement at that.

“Yeah, well, I’ll give you that one. But I’m sorry to have to inform you that this planet is occupied. For the foreseeable future.”

“But it is unclaimed.”

“Well, then, I hereby claim it.” Molly straightened up rather awkwardly and tried to think of something to do with her hands that would make her seem authoritative.

“ _You_ claim it?” The dubious tone was the most inflection the Trachiomatoriss had used thus far.

“Yes,” Molly said with more conviction. “I claim the planet Earth on behalf of the human race.”

The man stepped forward and whispered hastily in Molly’s ear, “In accordance with Galactic Law.”

“In accordance with Galactic Law,” she quickly added.

“How do you mean, Librarian?” The Trachiomatoriss asked. Molly turned to the man questioningly. He (rather immaturely) put up his hands in an indication of her authority as though to suggest that he was out of his element.

“Allow me to defer to my knowledgeable companion.” Molly gestured to the man, who gave her an odd look, but spoke nonetheless.

“The Shadow Proclamation states that mining rights go first to the native species of a planet and are only available for transfer to another species should the native species willingly surrender them.” He nodded in a self-satisfied manner and smirked at Molly, who rolled her eyes. “Might I suggest an unoccupied terrestrial body within this same galaxy? HD 209458 b is currently unoccupied and is comprised of a number of useful elements. Or anything within the Gliese 581 stellar-system, really. All of those bodies are made up of concentrations of elements that the human race will never be able to harness. And all of them are within, oh, about thirty light-years of Earth. You won’t even have to travel very far. I know you’ve come a long way.”

The Trachiomatoriss seemed to be considering this option very carefully. In the silence that followed the man’s declaration, he turned to Molly and winked conspiratorially at her. What an odd person.

“In light of the Librarian’s declaration,” the Trachiomatoriss finally continued, “we have no choice but to seek out other resources.” He – at least, Molly thought it was a ‘he’ – nodded politely to Molly and the man before his image began to waver. “Our apologies for the damage we have caused.” The light beam retracted into the vessel that was still hovering above the library before a great wind built up from beneath it, sending pages and bits of debris flying all around. The ship disappeared with a sonic boom and Molly was left feeling incredibly clichéd.

After a moment, she finally turned back to the man, who was grinning broadly, and said, “Do I _own_ the Earth?” He scoffed.

“Don’t let it go to your head.” How could she _not_ let it go to her head? “It doesn’t really matter,” he went on. “There aren’t very many people you could tell who’d believe you anyway. And what’s ownership without power?” He shrugged nonchalantly before taking a step closer and extending a hand to her. Molly took it on instinct. “Well. It’s been wonderful working with you, young librarian. But the time has come to say goodbye.” He gave her a sort of salute before turning and walking away.

It was at least a full minute before Molly’s hand fell and she realized that he had gone. Instantly, she shot off for the remainder of the stairwell, tripping over bits of broken furniture and books as she went.

“Hey! Wait!” She finally spotted him as he was leisurely crossing the street to St. James’s Square. “You can’t just leave!” Molly dodged a car and caught up to the man.

“But I must!” he called over his shoulder as he started into the overgrown shrubbery at the edge of the square. Molly darted in after him, shoving her way through the tangled branches and vines.

“But I don’t even know who you are! Where are you going?” The man finally stopped in front of what looked like a large, blue phone booth; it had the words “Police Public Call Box” printed across the top. The man took a small silver key from his pocket and turned it in the lock.

“Haven’t the foggiest.” He pushed open the door and stepped inside, but barely left enough room for his slender body to pass, so that Molly could not force her way behind him. “Now, really, you can’t come with me,” he said in a patronizing tone.

“Why not?” she insisted, throwing an arm between the door and the jamb. “Why not?” she said again, with more eagerness than irritation this time. The man ran his hand through his wild ginger hair and took a deep breath.

“My life is… I’m not very safe to be around,” he finally managed.

“Yeah, I figured that,” Molly said smartly, gesturing back to the gaping hole in the roof of the London Library. “Look at what you’ve done to my library! Do you _know_ what this place is?” The man looked over at the library and seemed to notice the damage for the first time. As though he hadn’t been just underneath it when it happened. “I’m not looking for safe. I’ve _always_ had safe. And you can’t just burst into my life and expect to walk back out as strangely as you came. _You_ got me involved. You jump, I jump, Jack.”

The man looked her over with an odd expression on his youthful face – it was almost sad. Apologetic. Finally, he sighed, he nodded, and he stepped back to allow Molly entry.

The inside was bigger. And very bright. And all sorts of clicking and whirring sounds were emanating from all over. Molly wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but it was a lot less than this. “Holy….”

“Yeah, I know,” the man said as he shut the door behind him. “ _It’s bigger on the inside!_ ”

“This is so _cool_!” Molly exclaimed. “What is it – a parallel plane inside the box?” She turned eagerly toward the man and he looked surprised.

“You know, you’re only the second person to ever get that right.”

“Cool,” Molly said again. She turned on the spot and tried to take as much of it in as possible. “What is it?”

“It’s the TARDIS.” The man’s tone was almost affectionate. “It’s a time and space travelling machine.” Molly took a moment to let that sink in.

“Ok,” she said, “one more question.”

“Only one?”

“Who are you?”

The man let out a big breath and said, “What a question.” He shook his head, as though he disliked the answer. “I’m the Doctor.”

“What sort of name is the Doctor?”

“It’s not a name, it’s a title.”

“Oh. Doctor what then?”

“No, just – just the Doctor. It’s more of an alias.”

“For what?” The man made a strange gesture with his hands, clearly frustrated.

“It’s just what I’m called, ok?” He took a deep breath. “Who are _you_ , then?”

“I’m Molly Brown.” The Doctor grinned at that.

“The unsinkable?”

“I like to think so.” She grinned back. Molly stepped toward what had to be the console – it was large and circular and in the center of the strange room. “So, where are we off to?”

“Listen,” the Doctor said with a heavy sigh, “I don’t think you fully understand what you’re asking to get into, or you would think twice about it.” He put a hand absently on the back of a tattered chair that was attached to the console and looked at Molly with a very severe expression. “I’m an old man with a lot to run away from. And I’m running out of time. I never thought I would, but I am.” He took a breath, obviously trying to steady himself. “I’ve made far too many bad mistakes when it comes to the people around me. I can’t guarantee your safety.” Molly put a hand on his and smiled reassuringly.

“I’m not asking you to,” she said. “Besides, Doctor; you’re never too old to make a few good mistakes.” Finally, he smiled at that, albeit a little sadly; it was like he still didn’t quite believe her. But he nodded anyway and put his hand on a lever ominously.

“So. All of time and space – everything that ever happened or ever will. What do you want to see?”

Molly wrapped her hand around the lever and pulled down, excitement flooding her every nerve.

“All of it.”


End file.
